Enticing product names

A few weeks back I was talking to myself about how sometimes it would be nice to have another English-speaker to talk to. I love my husband and his family and all my other Brazilian comrades, but there are times when it would be nice to have someone around to make little jokes about daily life with.

Take, for instance, the evening when I was faced with a terrible dilemma: which on-sale item should I buy -- Vigor Potty or Batmilk? The image in my head of the bat-dairy farmer hunched over, painstakingly pinch-pumping the teats of thousands of little flying rodents, was very appealing to me. However, I couldn't entirely disregard the enticing enigma of the Vigor Potty either. Did I even want to know the meaning of it?

The choice was simply too delightful. I bought them both, and took them home to my husband, who has always been big on solidarity. After I translated the joke for him, he chortled dutifully.

White legs with Horse and Child

Here is a picture of Lucas and me getting to know the horsey.

When I saw this picture, what I noticed first was not the memorable moment of taking a one-and-a-half year old for a lurchy horse ride. I noticed that after 5-and-a-half years in sunny Brazil, my legs have nothing to show for it.

Lucas's sister Bia has told me a few times that I need to go to the beach so I can "get more black". I have to keep explaining to her that I could stay out on the beach all day, but I wouldn't get more black, just red or maybe even purple and blistery.